Alyson Winchester: Fire
by WaywardDaughter18
Summary: The events of the night of November 2, 1991, when everything changed for the Winchesters. Same AU as The Adventures of Alyson Winchester. CONTENT WARNING: Character death. Intense subject matter.


**FIRE**

SUMMARY: The events of the night of November 2, 1991, when everything changed for the Winchesters. Same AU as The Adventures of Alyson Winchester.

CONTENT WARNING: Character death. Intense subject matter.

Aly: 6 months old, Sam: 8 years old, Dean: 12 years old

~ ~ spn ~ ~ spn ~ ~spn ~ ~

John woke up suddenly, bringing the recliner upright with a thud. He was disoriented; he thought he had heard a scream- there was shooting and yelling on the t.v. screen, was that what he had heard?

Then he heard Mary's voice- "Aly? Aly!" Her cry was full of fear.

John sprang out of the chair, panic filling his stomach with dread, and ran up the stairs, taking them three at a time, something he often scolded his boys about doing. His open bathrobe flapped around his legs as he hurried down the hall to the baby's room.

The nursery door was ajar and he pushed it open. The room was dark except for the little night light that was on the tall dresser next to the crib, and the little glowing lights that indicated that the baby monitor was on.

John's breath caught in his chest as he saw a tall dark figure standing beside the baby's crib. It wasn't his wife.

He opened his mouth to say something, and he heard a slight sound, an exhalation, and he looked up.

Mary was on the ceiling, arms spread out, her face pale and terrified. The middle part of her nightgown was ripped open and he could see part of the creamy white skin of her abdomen, marred by a large, open wound that dripped blood.

"Mary!" he cried out. His knees went out from under him and he fell back on the ground at the realization that his beloved wife was dying, if not already dead. He looked around the room- could he stand on the glider and get her down off of the ceiling? That was too low, maybe standing in the crib, he would be close enough to the ceiling to reach her— then suddenly, fire billowed into life behind her.

John gasped in horror, and cried out his wife's name again, realizing there was nothing he could do for her. His whole life changed in that one instant.

Aly howled in her crib in response to the sudden burst of light and heat, and John tore his gaze away from the ceiling. The dark figure was gone. John's head was spinning, but he reacted instinctively, rushing over to the crib and lifting Aly out, picking up a blanket and wrapping it loosely around her. As he turned to leave, he looked down and noticed there was a dark smear around her mouth. He took the sleeve of his bathrobe and wiped it off, and as he wiped he noticed it was red. Dear God, was it blood?

The heat was becoming intense as the fire spread out across the ceiling. John didn't dare risk another look upwards, so he rushed out of the room and down the hall into his eldest son's room.

He ran over to the bed and reached down, shaking the boy's shoulder.

"Dean! Dean, wake up!" he cried urgently.

"Yeah?" Dean opened his eyes and looked up at his father, not completely awake.

"The house is on fire!" John thrust baby Aly at Dean, and Dean sat up, his eyes wide with fear, instantly awake now. He took the baby in his arms as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

"Dad-" he said breathlessly.

"Take the baby outside as fast as you can and don't look back! Now, Dean, go!" John hollered.

Dean nodded, and ran down the stairs and out the front door. Halfway across the front lawn, he turned and looked up. Aly's room was at the front of the house, and he could see the orange-yellow light from the flames in the room, shining out the window.

"Son, are you okay?" a neighbor yelled from across the street, but Dean didn't even register that he had heard. Aly was fussing in his arms, waving clenched fists in the air.

"Fire trucks are on their way!" the man called.

Dean turned as the front door opened and John emerged, carrying a limp Sam in his arms. He ran across the grass, past Dean, and Dean followed him, still holding on to Aly tightly. John knelt down at the edge of the yard and gently laid Sam on the ground. Sam moved his head slightly, his eyelids fluttering, and coughed once or twice, then his eyes closed.

"Where's Mom?" Dean asked.

John stood up and looked at Dean. "I'm going back in for her," he said, turning and running back into the house.

Dean leaned down over his brother.

"Sam," he said, touching Sam's face, which had soot on it. "Hey Sammy, you okay?"

Sam didn't respond.

Dean could heat the wailing of the sirens coming closer now, and see the red flashing lights as they spun on the tops of the fire trucks that pulled up to the curb.

Two firemen hurried up to him. "Son, are you okay?"

"Yeah, my dad went inside to get my mom!" Dean told them. They rushed into the house.

Paramedics came over and knelt down next to Sam and began to check him over. Dean could hear them saying phrases like "O2 sat low" and "Need to get a CO2 level". One of them left and then brought a stretcher over, and they loaded Sam onto it after they had affixed an oxygen mask to his face.

The front door of the house opened and the firefighters came out, almost wrestling with John, who was fighting them.

"My wife!" he yelled, "I have to get my wife!"

"Sir, let us do our jobs," said one of the firefighters.

John's hand clenched into a fist and he pulled his arm back to punch the man, but then there was a loud explosion and the windows of the nursery blew outwards, belching hot smoke and flames out into the cold night air. The neighbors who were gathered across the street screamed. Aly twisted in Dean's arms, arching her back, and howled in response to the noise and the fear she could feel coming off of Dean.

The paramedics began to wheel the stretcher over to the ambulance. Sam's eyes fluttered open as they walked. Dean followed behind, trying to comfort Aly as best he could.

He couldn't hear what the firefighters were saying to his father, but they walked him over to the back of the ambulance, and then ran to one of the trucks.

"I tried to stop...but she's gone." John said to Dean, his face agonized. Tears tracked their way down John's face, making a path through the soot on his cheeks. The paramedics loaded the stretcher into the back of the ambulance and began to check Sam over again. Dean rocked Aly in his arms as she screamed. John stood there and put his hand on Dean's shoulder, and they watched, numb, as the firefighters tried to quell the fire that was burning its way through their home.

~ ~ spn ~ ~ spn ~ ~ spn ~ ~

John entered the curtained-off area that his children were in. He had tried to brush off the doctors who wanted to examine him, but they had insisted. The whole ER area could hear the angry cries of baby Aly.

Dean turned to John as he walked over. He held a fussy, wriggling Aly in his left arm, and a full baby bottle in his free hand.

"Dad, she's hungry, but she won't take it." he said, his face pale and strained.

A nurse stood next to Dean, watching.

John reached for the baby, who was red-faced with anger, her little mouth wide open as she screamed her outrage at having to drink from a bottle. There was formula around her mouth, and for a moment John got a chill as it made him think of the blood he had seen around her mouth earlier.

"Let me have her," he said. He settled Aly in his arms, and she paused in her screaming for a moment, and turned her face towards him. He was still wearing his bathrobe, and Mary often wore it during the day, so her smell was undoubtedly on it. Aly nuzzled his chest, rooting for her mother's breast, her breath coming in anxious little gasps. John took the bottle from Dean and eased the nipple into Aly's open mouth.

Aly drank for a moment, and then choked on the formula, and her mouth opened as she began to wail again.

"That's what she did before." Dean told him.

John looked at the nurse. "She's not used to a bottle, my wife breast-fed exclusively. What do we do?"

"Well, I can see if we have another kind of nipple," the nurse said doubtfully. "She's just going to have to get used to it."

The nurse walked around him and left the area.

John lifted Aly onto his shoulder and began to hum "Hey Jude" by The Beatles. That was Mary's go-to lullabye for the kids.

After a moment, Aly's cries petered out and her tiny fist made its way to her mouth. She sucked on it noisily and whimpered every so often.

John walked over to the bed, where Sam sat propped up, the oxygen mask still on his face.

"How ya doing, Sammy?" John asked tiredly. He felt utterly exhausted, all the way to his bones.

"Dad, where's Mom?" Sam asked worriedly. "No one will tell me where she is!" He looked up at John, his hazel eyes filling with tears. "Is she okay?"

John felt nausea in his stomach, and fear, realizing that he had to tell his son the devastating news, and that in saying the words it was going to be an acknowledgement that their lives were forever changed.

"Sam—Sammy-" John's voice broke, and he took a deep breath. "Son, your mother...she was trapped in the fire. I'm sorry, she's...she's gone."

"Gone?" Sam asked, frowning. "What do you mean, gone?"

"She's—she's-" John hesitated, not wanting to say the word.

"Gone, Sammy, as in dead and gone!" Dean yelled, and John turned to look at him. Dean's face was red, and tears were streaming down his cheeks. He turned and punched the wall next to him.

Sam burst into tears. "No!" he cried out. _"NO!"_

John leaned down and put his arm around Sam, and Sam clutched at him, sobbing. A moment later Dean was on the other side of Sam, and his arms circled his brother, reaching around to his father too, and the family stayed like that for a while, holding each other and crying as their new reality set in.

~ ~ spn ~ ~ spn ~ ~ spn ~ ~

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I had to change the date of the fire to make it coincide with Aly being 6 months old. I made her birthday close enough to Sam's so that she would be approximately the correct age to follow that part of canon.

Dean DOB: January 24, 1979, Sam DOB: May 2, 1983, Aly DOB: April 26, 1991

Date of the Fire: Nov 2, 1991

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE: If this is your first time reading one of my fanfics, please check out my profile for more stories with Alyson Winchester. The main story is called The Adventures of Alyson Winchester, and there are several one-shots about Aly at different ages. I hope you enjoy them, and if you do, please leave me a review!**


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